Prazer, Stan: A biografia em quadrinhos do lendário Stan Lee

by Tom Scioli

Todo mundo conhece Stan sua criatividade na Marvel Comics resultou na criação de vários super-heróis famosos conhecidos até hoje, como o Homem-Aranha, Quarteto Fantástico, Pantera Negra, Doutor Estranho, Hulk, Viúva Negra, os X-Men e muitos outros. Durante décadas de sua carreira, Lee transformou os quadrinhos em um rolo compressor cultural que mudou a indústria.
Em Prazer, Stan, Scioli revela o homem por trás dos quadrinhos e das participações especiais usando o mesmo meio que Lee revolucionou. Esta graphic novel leva o leitor aos primeiros dias de Lee na indústria de quadrinhos, passando por sua ascensão na Marvel até seus últimos anos longe dos holofotes, o que proporciona uma visão clara de seus triunfos e falhas. Narrado no estilo único e cinematográfico de Scioli, Prazer, Stan mostra como o icônico criador Stan Lee era.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Biography, Nonfiction, Art, Pop Culture, Comix

Kindle Edition

Published February 28, 2024

Reviews

[Tawfek · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm too modest to write how wonderful i am, i gotta let other people do that.

Now We know where i get my modesty from Eh? My first ever comic read was X-Men, and while i didn't branch out much, i think i only read The Incredible Hulk as well by Stan, I got doses of Stanleeness, through out my Comic Reading Life, from the Stan Lee Soap Box, Cool changes, through out the ages, what is cool now, will not be exactly cool 20 years from now, through it all i felt Stan was Cool, To the point that i started thinking of it, and voicing my thought to friends, how is it a man from 60 years ago, and he is so cool by today's standards.

(Apologies for late review post, my pc was broken, and i don't deal with netgalley on phone.)
I received an ARC of this Graphic Biography in exchange for an honest review, Thanks Tom Scioli, Netgalley, for the opportunity.
This will come out 12 September 2023, Tune in if you want an honest Biography of the man the legend The King of comics (I don't mind there being two kings) Stan The Man Lee, With art style reminiscent of the silver age of comics, and with transparency of the sources of each and every scene happening, so even if you are not really convinced of a certain situation, that might make Stan look bad, You can check the notes and see who exactly is the source of it.
This was Comics history unraveling in front of my eyes, i loved it so much, i ll take a break and read Jack Kirby: The Epic Life of the King of Comics By Tom Scioli as well.
Stay Tuned it will be a blast from the past, that will remain reverberating through out our future as it has been in our history for the past 60 years.

I've been writing stories for the young generation for the past 30 years.
We've come to a time in history when there is a generation gap, anything we can do to bridge this gap can be a beneficial thing.

Stan did it because it was his job that he loved, but also he did it for all the right reasons, He even spoke his Philosophy on comics helping kids read, You Put a comic in front of a kid, they are interested in the pictures, but in order to understand what's happening they have got to read the words, and it's a stepping stone, a bridge to read real books!
We had a writer in Egypt may he rest in peace, called Ahmed Khaled Tawfek, and no i don't like him because he is the son of my son, He did these novellas pocket size, that got us so interested in reading, he would mention great works of literature and we are intrigued we don't know how to get them before the age of the internet, but we are paying attention, and then when the flood gates finally open, when we can move about our own states, to reach bookstores, or when we are finally free to travel to book conventions, and you finally get to see these books, you are finally able to read them, he was our stepping stone, he was our bridge, He was the one who made the youth read (as is written on his gravestone) and Stan Lee pretty much did the same.

I'd rather be a fine art painter but who is hiring for that? I like drawing but i couldn't care less about these stories and these characters.

You know this is not only a problem for fine arts graduates, or talented painters in general, this is a problem for so many professions or talents, we can't all be doing the exact same thing, not enough consumers, and if you want to continue doing your specialty, you gotta settle for less, and maybe use the money from that to try and do the thing you like more, But who said Comics have to be boring and generic? You can make a unique art style, and if the top 2 are idiots enough to ask you to be generic you can join other publishers and reach fame with being innovative and doing what you love and reach success doing Great art like Dave McKean and others.

If i do this scene, the girl that didn't get away won't let me back in the house.

He's unbeatable, His imagination, his creativity, and his brilliance, He's not made it easy for other men I've met.

Stan was really a family man, It so Often happens to be the case, that a family man loses focus of being there with his family, to make stronger connections, and he is just providing them with extravagant life, He loved them, they loved him back.
And he cared, it showed so much, the guy is a terrible actor, he asked to change his role, in order to not make his wife mad, like it was real 🤦‍♂️ But Damn it He Cared!
The biography didn't have scenes of issues with his wife, but at the end things were blurry with the daughter, i say it's a poor documenting of his last days, because we truly don't know what was happening.

Having A Jewish father and A Christian mother creates confusion for the child, We'd like to spare them that, If possible.

Are you kidding me with this shit? They got this answer when they were trying to adopt because they wanted more children, it's fucking ridiculous.

We can provide a loving home what else is more important than that?

Stan, You Are aware that the motion picture academy was started to sidestep and circumvent efforts to unionize motion picture workers? These are changes the industry desperately needs.

Yeah, "Law and Order" Means "Keep down black people" Mostly.

I think the most disappointing thing about Stan is he really didn't care, I mean he was having it as bad as everyone else, the money came later, the start was miserable for all, even though they were creating legends.
But you really get a strong sense he doesn't care about fellow writers and pencilers enough to help them get better work conditions, He didn't care about the ongoing racism in the country, he probably didn't make a single black super hero, he talks in the end of his life, how he wanted to do something to help with racism and how he realized that he didn't help with it before, But that's just talking after the fact, because now it's cool, and it won't cause you issues.

Because even if you succeed... If you reach the pinnacle of success in comics...
You will be less successful, less secure, than if you were just an average practitioner of your art in television, radio, movies, or what have you!

It's really sad, these people were really at the pinnacle of success in comics, and while they were putting good on the table, they were really suffering, all your time consumed, getting minimum wages, Things are better but not really, we see many writers at the pinnacle have an aversion to continue their ongoing projects, after comics have failed them to make it big, because everyone wants this movie money, this tv series money, we are always looking at the next step, but if the current career wall that we can't climb is already good, then why not dedicate ourselves, and make history?

I have an inking job for you, Ayers, Don't rush it, do your usual quality job...But we need it yesterday

Chaos! The Quality of comics descended so fast, and became horrendous in the silver age of comics.
If a publisher is treating a genre lightly, it's hard for the writers to give it max effort and really innovate, once i saw Martin Goodman saying comics are not rocket science i felt okay we found the reason old comics sucked, But there was more reasons.

They had a wave and they had to write it, and Chaos, writer giving synopsis of the story to the penciler, who then draws the story from these wide lines, and give it to the writer, who will then write the dialogue and the story, that the penciler imagined, We know the penciler has a dialogue in mind, but it's probably awful, Stan Lee does his magic and you have a comic, The Penciler gets a big head thinking hey this is my story, when he did so many creations before that and they were horrendous unreadable trash, and the writer needs to protect his intellectual property without hurting the penciler's feelings, but feelings are gonna get hurt, because we are beating around the bushes, and the writer and the penciler are pretty much freelancers, yes Stan was the employee, but he was also a writer freelancer, he got paid by the piece on top of his wage of being editor in the first place, and the situation with the business at that time is horrendous, if the penciler was treated as a co-creator as they are now, he wouldn't feel like he wants to discredit the writer entirely, it's all about money.
I saw Neil Gaiman say before about Ownership of The Sandman, that he doesn't own it, that he was commissioned to write it, and it's owned by DC, and he got the job done, guy created the best series in comics probably, obviously he had a contract, and he was probably specifically asked to do this story, same with The Books of Magic.
Jack Kirby pretty much at one point in the biography said, I wasn't allowed to write!
So how are they your characters again? I felt the ugliness was on both sides, and it's all because art wasn't considered as co-creation of the comic, so u wanted to take credit for something you didn't do.

You don't want to see a middle-aged man chase his hair down the strait.

He was funny damn it, so funny, and unlike what so many people think about middle-aged men that wear wigs, thinking oh they wanna look younger, they want to chase women or whatever, the guy never even thought of cheating on his wife, he did it, because how it all went down hill for his hair was stressing him.
I once heard Lady Gaga telling her fans, Wear wigs put makeup on, do whatever makes you feel happy, and beautiful.
You could see through out this biography underlines of people around Stan, thinking he is fake somehow because of the whole wig thing, Even Jack Kirby went as far as to make a man who look like Stan get beaten in one of his comics and lose his wig.
I have my hair intact so far Thank you very much, but i say it like it is, I hate the duplicity of our community, we have different levels of Tolerance and Judgement depending on your gender, your sexual orientation, your religion, your color, Your Age, That shit needs to stop, Don't Generalize, that is a problem worthy of seeing a therapist, i am not even kidding i swear, ask yours!

I don't think I'd want to be immortal, unless it went for everybody, I wouldn't want to be alive while all my friends and relatives were dying.

Maybe we can't be immortal in the way that everyone craves, But we can be immortalized in the memory of so many people, and guess what Stan, You Kind of immortalized your friends with you, Your Wife and daughter Joan, Your Co-workers (Even though they were legends in their own right).

[Rod Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

A shallow skim through the life of Stan Lee that won't add much to the knowledge of faithful comic book fans and that will leave newbies confused with the sprawling mass of barely introduced comic book publishing figures and fictional characters crowded onto the pages.

The art, with it's uninspired layouts, is mostly a string of talking heads where the word balloons sometimes comically overwhelm the stacks of long horizontal panels.

Still, I'm a sucker for comic book history and am always happy to see cameos from favorite writers and artists. Or Stan, if I have to.

[Reading_ Tamishly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I as a stan do stan this graphic novel biography.

I love the art sequence style and how the dialogues have been written. However, it seems to have lost its patience towards the end and so the last few pages seems a bit congested.

Apart from this minor issue, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this graphic novel. I came to know so much more about the creator and his younger days. Means so much to sometime like me who’s been quite looking forward to know a little more about this legend.

Black Panther is still my favourite though I do not miss out on most of his amazing creations. Yes, I will keep stanning Stan Lee.

Thank you, Ten Speed Press, for the advance reading copy.

[Drew Canole · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoy Tom Scioli but his comics usually fall a bit short for me.

Here we have a sweeping biography of Stan Lee. Told in little bit-sized scenes with no commentary. We'll get a page of Stan Lee on a TV-show... but zero context (except for a note in the bibliography) of what show it is, what year it is, why Stan was on the show etc.

Much of the book is static just talking heads with none of the dynamic action Stan Lee keeps demanding from his cartoonists!

I'm firmly on the Jack Kirby side of the debate between who was the true genius in early Marvel comics. It seems like Stan Lee was guiding the ship with some rough ideas but the artists drew the comics with no script! Stan Lee even claims Jack Kirby didn't even read Stan Lee's finished work (IE the dialogue and text he puts on Kirby's comics). But I do have to agree with Stan Lee... the Marvel Method worked, so why change anything? Lets the cartoonists do the heavy-lifting. An unlike scripted comics, the Marvel comics focused on the art and the action.

Wally Wood did a few Daredevil comics for Stan Lee after already becoming a legend with his 50s work. Scioli shows him getting upset with Lee for using the "Marvel method"... he asks to be allowed to finish the writing for a couple issues and gets a lot of pushback and criticism. As we see in a few scenes Stan Lee's criticism was often unwarranted and just a way to control the creators and keep the power in his hands.

I didn't think I was a Stan Lee expert coming into this, but honestly I didn't see much here I didn't already know! Most of the events Scioli decides to cover are fairly common knowledge.

[Jon Nakapalau · Rating 5 out of 5]

Before I review this book the truth be told: I am a huge Stan Lee fan. I still realize that he had his failings (as do we all) so this book was of particular interest to me. This GN is balanced and well researched; all interactions are sited. This book will be of interest to both San Lee fans and a wider audience of those interested in the history of comics in America.

[Lissa Hawley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love the concept of this book, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired.
The art was not to my taste, with the "characters" (actual people) mostly blurring together. Even Stan Lee himself was hard to pick out at times. I did look up the author/artist's other works from his website, so it seems his style is just not for me, so your mileage may vary in that regard.
As for the narrative, it was very disjointed and mostly involved a lot of name dropping. Both of creators and characters without any exceptional art to back them up. Part of the problem was that since this is an unauthorized (is that the correct term?) biography they probably couldn't show any images of a lot of the Marvel characters without copyright/licensing issues, but that really took a lot out of the story.
The other part is likely the difficulty of cramming so many years of life into so few pages.

[Soteralzobooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.2 (biblio)

[Reid Chancellor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Soft 4 stars. Likely a 3.8. I really enjoyed the book. I wished there would have been a little more big art pages just to show off Scioli's talent. But given the subject matter I understand the choice. Still a great read.

[Peacegal · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the classic-looking illustration style, but I feel that unless you're already familiar with Lee's story, I AM STAN is quite confusing. The time jumps, and the fact that readers only occasionally know what era is being presented (through the occasional mention of a news story, etc.), can make for difficult comprehension.

[Joanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.75 This is the first biographical material I’ve ever read about Stan Lee in any form, so some of my stars here are attributable to hearing this guy’s fascinating life story, which held me rapt. I’ve always been a sucker for Mad Men-esque Manhattan-based publishing stories.

And while this one boldly took on Stan’s medium of graphic comics to tell Stan’s story, I can predict that it has some issues that mega-fans would balk at, although I really enjoyed reading it.

Stan’s freewheeling management style got the comics out, but didn’t really secure copyright protection the way the future would demand. As I read these office antics, I winced as well, thinking that’s gonna hurt someday…of course, these artists had no idea of the megabuck$ that would be at stake in the Marvel cinematic universe future. Lots and lots of names and freelancing faces flew by, depicting how managing that office probably was.

Scioli’s storytelling got even more disjointed at the end, with single comic strip type pages. In fact, ironically, he broke many of Lee’s own rules for the fundamentals of smooth continuity. But an audacious project like this invites that easy target.

[Vinayak Hegde · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the graphic novel biography of Stan Lee. It is not an authorized biography but most of the conversations in the book are from secondary sources such as book and interviews over the years. While we get a good idea about the man, his creations and the process of creating comics, many of the part of the book seem disjointed and not not one smooth narrative. Also there is a disclaimer in the book that some parts of the story are disputed as Stan Lee was known as credit hog and did not give much credit to the people who co-created the comic book characters with him such as Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko. If you already know the story or some parts of his story this is a decent read but otherwise the people and the characters he talks to are not introduced properly in many places. Especially the last part of his life in which people took advantage of him. Some parts of the narrative seemed self-serving, shallow and one-sided.

[ashley marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

For being a graphic memoir, this sure packed a punch. Known for being wordy, this didn’t miss a beat in Stan Lee’s life. From his tumultuous childhood, to his midlife hustle, to comics and beyond, you really see the man behind the legends. However, I almost wish this was a written memoir with added comics. It feels like there was so much crammed into the pages. However, now I have all sorts of Stan Lee and Marvel fun facts to pull from when I want.
Definitely recommended to Marvel fans. It gives great insight towards its beginnings and how Stan was able to develop the characters me stories with his teams.

[Bee · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a quick and and easy read and the art style fit perfect for the legendary Stan Lee personality. Simple but conveyed the gravitas of a man that just wanted to be noticed.

As a life-long comic fan, it was informative of the history of Marvel Comics and Stan Lee's life. Tom Scioli showed his love of the industry by picking the right hallmarks of Lee's career.

This book is a must for all comic fans and anyone who enjoyed Hip Hop Family tree by Ed Piskor. It's refreshing to see where the comic industry came from to where it lives no.

My final review for I am Stan: Excelsior!

[tony dillard jr · Rating 5 out of 5]

My wife knows that I'm a big fan of both Jack Kirby and Stan Lee and got me both of Tom Scioli's graphic biographies of these two Marvel legends. The favorability of Stan the Man had lessened in my eyes after reading the Kirby book. Stan Lee took advantage of the King. But to be fair, a lot of high ups in the comic book industry used Jack Kirby as their personal door mat.

Knowing how Stan Lee came off as a massive jerk in Scioli's other work, I held off on reading this book which I got last year for Christmas. But I couldn't hold off any further as I Am Stan was just sitting atop my 'To Read' pile just screaming to be read.

With Stan Lee as the subject, Tom Scioli does seem to paint the man born as Stanley Lieber in a more favorable light. There's no doubt that Stan was a master storyteller and a lot of the anecdotes he regaled both interviewers and audiences seemed to evolve over time; getting more and more wilder and inaccurate with every retelling. As Scioli utilized a slew of articles and writings by and about Stan Lee, a lot of material is more positive about Stan as history is often told by the victors. However, I am glad to say that Stan Lee is portrayed as far from perfect.

For one thing, Stan was a workaholic. Makes sense as his father was often in-between jobs and seldom actively searching for work. However, Stan's work ethic caused friction between him and his beloved Joan, whom I did not know until I read this work that she was married to some other dude when Stan met her. I also expected Scioli to reveal that Stan was cheating on Joan with possibly his gal Friday, the Fabulous Flo Steinberg. However, it appears that in that regard, Stan was a saint!

Stan Lee was also a businessman. As much as he acted as one of the people in his monthly 'Stan's Soapbox' columns, Stan was the MAN, taking the side of big business when approached to support a comic book writer and artist union in the 1970s. That's despite claiming to be all for it years later once he was nothing more than Marvel's Chairman Emeritus.

You might blame Stan's ego on his family. His mother smothered him with praise; perhaps in hopes he'd grown into someone other than his father. Stan could be modest. However, he also couldn't help himself to ham things up. It's a tale almost as old as time. The guy looked upon as the leader gets all the accolades. As their heads balloon up with the forthcoming perks and riches, the leader forgets the little guys, causing friction if not all around dissension and broken relationships along the way.

Jack Kirby's love/hate relationship with Stan Lee is covered in large part in this work. Thankfully, Tom Scioli doesn't just repeat everything that transpired between the two founders of the Marvel Universe play out exactly as it did in the earlier Kirby biography. If there was ever a time I would expect a comic book creator to phone it in with repeated swipes of previously published material, it would be in this book. Yet, Scioli doesn't fall into that trap!

Reading this biography has got me itching to give the Kirby graphic novel another read in order to compare notes. I've got a perfect chance to do so coming up in a couple of weeks. I'll be interested to see where Tom Scioli repeats himself as well as portraying incidents that are covered in both histories differently. I don't normally like to do a re-read. But this is one of those exception times where I'm actually looking forward to it.

I'm also hoping that Tom Scioli doesn't stop with the graphic biographies of comicdom's biggest names. Julie Schwartz, Bill Gaines and Steranko are just a few subjects I would love to see Scioli give notice to!

[Danielle Russell · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am a relatively new Marvel fan, so I was excited to get the chance to read about the life of Stan Lee. I thought the concept of being told in a comic/graphic novel fit perfectly. Since I didn't know a ton about Lee prior to reading I Am Stan, I felt the book had a lot of interesting information in it.

My primary issues with the book and why I landed on a 2 star rating is that while I loved the concept, I don't feel it was carried out as well as it could have. There were a handful of pages where there was an extreme amount of dialogue, so it took away from the enjoyment of the book. I also found it difficult to keep up with the timeline and what years everything was happening in. We get some clues, such as seeing a TV that reports JFK's assassination, including pop icons like the Backstreet Boys or Pamela Anderson, and references to things like Hillary Clinton running for senate. I think the illustrator should have included the year events were happening. This led to a disconnect of the flow of Lee's life events. It felt like at some points there was too much information, and other times, not enough.

But the illustrations were very well done. I can tell a lot of time and effort went into creating a physical representation of Stan Lee's life. Though there was no connection to Stan Lee's team in the creation of this book, it is apparent the author pulled from a variety of sources to help piece together his life. I like that Lee wasn't always portrayed in a good light -- I felt it added to the "he's human" thought more.

Overall, i felt the content was good, but the organization and pacing could have been better.


Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with a free, advanced digital copy of this title in exchange for an honest review.

[Kayleigh · Rating 4 out of 5]

I Am Stan: A Graphic Biography Of A Legendary Stan Lee by Tom Scioli

Rating: 4 stars

"Excelsior"

Blurb: The first graphic novel biography about Stan Lee. This book shows how Stan's creative wheel helped create most of the Marvel characters we love today. It also showed his life that I feel like a lot of people don't talk about. From the young boy who fell in love with reading and writing to a family man. Stan was a young genius with big ambitions. Stan Lee will never be forgotten.

Review: Right off the bat I love that Scioli used the same medium that Stan Lee reformed. It definitely showed me things that I didn't necessarily know about Stan Lee. The colors were amazing in the book. The way I saw his life from the beginning to the end was heartwarming. The ending really hit home I will say I did tear up a little.

[Artur Coelho · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stan Lee é aquela figura que se tornou icónica, o símbolo do mundo dos comics. Algo que funciona em dois sentidos, Lee tanto nos mostra o poder da criativiade e o gosto pela banda desenhada, como o pior do comercialismo e práticas de gestão abusivas do trabalho de outros criadores. Sem ser muito profundo, este curioso biopic em comics toca nessas questões, como uma história de vida do homem, mas também a história de várias épocas do género. Sendo um livro biográfico, é pesado no texto, o grafismo fica-se pela representação das personagens e pouco mais. Algo que faz sentido no cânone estético dos comics independentes, mas que se sente que poderia ter ido mais longe. A abordagem à história de vida é feita com sentido crítico, não se limita a reproduzir lugares comuns e visões elogiosas sobre esta personalidade marcante.

[André Rodrigues · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5. Assim como Stan Lee, essa biografia de Tom Scioli é rápida, divertida, talentosa, cheia de ideias e um pouco truqueira. Por trás dos desenhos enérgicos e dos diálogos afiados, há alguma coisa vazia e sem emoção. Resumir em
centenas de cenas a vida de alguém que ajudou a moldar a cultura pop dos últimos oitenta anos entretém. Mas saímos um tanto anestesiados. Ao final, parece que assistimos um daqueles filmes biográficos conhecidos como “do berço ao túmulo”, quando um panorama da vida de alguém vira apenas uma sucessão de momentos que geram pouco envolvimento. Porém, esse é o projeto de Scioli. E ele tem competência de sobra pra deixar cada página cheia de prazer e animação. Excelsior.

[Trevor ComicFan · Rating 3 out of 5]

79

Interesting taking a look at Stan’s life. There were pieces of Marvel history that I was not aware of. Art was okay, more interesting for the snippets of his life. I did like how each page was a little vignette.

[Ali · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad, I think preferred the beginning where it was about setting up the company and how he got into comics but for the most part it was kinda mid and lacked substance. I thought the art style was cool though!

[Olga · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't enjoy the structure of this one at all. You have to be very knowledgeable about the Stan Lee lore prior to reading this in order to follow the story. And the art style was pretty bland for me as well.

[Samantha Williams · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars!

I learned a lot about Stan from this book! The artwork was great, it had the old-school Marvel vibes that suited the topic.

[Eva Leaden · Rating 2 out of 5]

As a longtime Marvel fan I was looking forward to this book but I just did not enjoy it. It was poorly written and had me skipping a lot of pages with heavy stilted dialogue. Just not my thing...

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

Pretty good stuff, and a great companion to his Kirby gn.

[Michael Hoelke · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Stephanie (aka WW) · Rating 2 out of 5]

I Am Stan presents Stan Lee’s personal and professional lives in appropriate graphic novel form. I liked learning all about the hyper-influencer, but wished for more about the Marvel characters he helped create (early sketches, etc.). Since this is an unlicensed biography, it is likely that the author did not have permission to use the characters in the book, but it suffers because of it.

[Wendy Lynn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thanks so much to NetGalley and Ten Speed Press for access to an eARC of I Am Stan in exchange for my honest review.

I got into Marvel comics a little later in life than some can claim, after growing up and falling in love with the MCU films, and watching Stan Lee's cameos in the films and later starting to read the comics that he helped create and turn into the phenomena they are today has always been something really special for me. So I jumped at the chance to real a biography of Stan Lee in the form of the medium that he made so special for so many people. *Especially* after I saw how colorful and vibrant the art style was.

Coming out the other side of I Am Stan, I can say that there were a few new fun things I learned about Stan and the art style 100% delivered the way I expected to. But while the art was excellent, I Am Stan fell a little flat for me on the 'story' side of things. The book is a sort of collection of different interviews, appearances, and 'scenes' from Stan's life in and outside of the Marvel Comics world, but with little to no explanation of each new scene and no real distinction of when a scene was starting or ending, there was no real recognizable flow to the novel and it all came across a little more disjointed than I would have liked.

I was hoping that this would be a really fun one to pick up and read with my niece and nephews (ages 10, 7, and 5) when I visit next, but I think now that it will be a bit too confusing for them to follow and understand until they're a little older, and even still, I think this is something I would recommend mostly for someone who is already *very* familiar with Stan's life, work, and at least some of the interviews and conversations that are adapted in I Am Stan, simply because it would be a lot easier to learn more about him in a more cohesive timeline from other biographies or by searching the internet.

I am still glad to have read this and learned even a bit more about Stan Lee, but thanks to the lack of tangible narrative structure or explanation of what is happening and why in each 'scene', it isn't one I think I would recommend for anyone who isn't already a diehard fan with a decent background knowledge going in.

[Gab · Rating 3 out of 5]

What better format to tell Stan Lee's life and career than a graphic novel?

Tom Scioli's I Am Stan offers a quick paced, one page per event series of flashes through Stan Lee's personal and professional life, inseparable from the history of comics and superheroes in the United States. Through interviews and some political events (including the comics code), the story mentions the criticism comics received as they became more popular, how long it took for the medium to be taken seriously, and how difficult it is to keep working on an artform that's considered "inferior".

I particularly appreciate how the author didn't shy away from showing Stan Lee's less shiny sides. The man may be a comics legend, he made wrong choices and wasn't always the best person, and I Am Stan portrays him as a complete human.

Thanks Ten Speed Press and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC.

[Username · Rating 2 out of 5]

I got an advanced copy from the publishers through Netgalley.

I read this in one sitting. It felt like a string of anecdotes, without much continuity, and didn't give me a sense of who Stan was. I learned a few things about his earlier years.

One major drawback was that it wasn't visual enough to justify it being a graphic novel, a prose biography illustrated with the classic Marvel comics may be more interesting.

[Kim (alwaysadelaidesmom) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I Am Stan was a fun ride through the background of Stan Lee's life and a huge lesson in the comic industry; however, I didn't always know enough details about Lee to keep up with all of the information. I loved the artwork and illustrations. The whole book feels like a 50's movie set with muted colors and an old-fashioned feel. Stan Lee had a VERY full life. He worked with and helped trained a lot of industry greats but a lot of the names weren't familiar to me. Some of the pages were almost completely filled with text and the time sometimes jumped ahead so quickly. There was so much information that I think this could have been made into a series with 3 or 4 shorter books. Maybe one day Scioli will be able to expand it to something like that. I saw a few videos online absolutely raving about this graphic novel so I think those who are big fans of Stan Lee and comics will really enjoy this. Overall, I enjoyed the whole feel of I AM Stan, I just felt like a comic noob (which I am) and so I felt a bit lost.